Microwaveable Fiasco
by idiosyncraticbug
Summary: Step 1: Add 1 portion of Naru, a sprinkle of Lin and a dash of Mai into a large bowl. Mix well. Step 2:  Marinate for 10 minutes. Step 3: Place in microwave and set at HIGH for 5 minutes. Best taken while hot. Yields unlimited servings.


Disclaimer: I don't own Ghost Hunt. I just borrowed the characters for a bit, that's all.

A/N: Warning: Do not try this at home just to prove that what I've written here really happens. This idiosyncraticbug will not be responsible for any accidents.

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_Italics denote thoughts._

oOo

He flipped through the book in his hands, rapidly skimming past every page. Occasionally though, he would pause for no longer than a second to glance at the picture that accompanied the description before moving on again to another page.

Finally, he stopped at a page someone had marked out by folding down the top-left hand corner. Dark eyes scanned the list of instructions and found, to his delight, that it was short. It is my humble duty to explain that short to him meant that it listed no more than 5 instructions with each instruction running no more than 3 lines, single-spaced.

The particular entry that had the misfortune to catch his eye held just three numbered directions, with 7 lines in total between the three of them, under it. In other words, it was the shortest entry in the entire 276-paged book (front and back covers not included, of course). This was a good thing because were it as long as all the other entries in the book, he would have considered it too much of a hassle and a waste of his extremely precious time (not to mention the fact that his stomach would start growling in exactly 30 minutes and 48 seconds).

His gaze traveled to the photograph at the bottom of the page and found himself staring at something that looked rather familiar. _Where have I seen this before? _He tapped a long finger at the picture, patiently waiting for his mind to recall that particular memory.

_That's it! Lin made it last week. Wait … come to think of it, he makes it every Saturday, _he thought as he looked over the instructions once more. They were all short and straight to the point. _This can't be too hard. How difficult can following such simple instructions be?_

Feeling his confidence rise, not that it had fallen in the first place, he set about looking for everything he would need. Seeing as today's a Friday, most of what he wanted to use would definitely be in the fridge, sitting there patiently and just waiting to be used by the tall Chinese man tomorrow evening.

Now, if Naru were a normal man, he would have been humming around the little kitchen as he pulled out the utensils and ingredients that he needed. However, seeing as how he was very, very far removed from a normal man, only an absolutely tiny smirk, visible to those with the vision of a hawk, was on his pale face.

Not even bothering to roll up the long sleeves of his darker-than-black shirt, Shibuya Kazuya, psychic genius and ghost hunter extraordinaire, got down to work on the one thing that he had never bothered with in all his 17 years: cooking.

Before you ask, no, you didn't read it wrongly, no, it wasn't a typing error on my part and yes, the words 'Shibuya Kazuya' and 'cooking' really did appear in the same sentence. Maybe I should have capitalized it, but let's not go into such trivial details now, shall we?

Why would Naru, psychic genius and ghost hunter extraordinaire, be doing something as menial as cooking in the kitchen, you ask? Well, there exist three main reasons for this:

1 ... The one man who prepared his daily dinner for him, namely his assistant Lin Koujo, was out helping his (Naru's, not Lin's) part-time assistant, Taniyama Mai, with some moving and in the process had taken the car with him.

2 ... It was drizzling rather heavily outside and Naru absolutely hates going out in the rain because it makes his hair stick to his face and his trousers uncomfortably wet (you did not hear this from me).

3 ... Naru does not know the number of the local pizza place (or any other place that promises 15-minute delivery to your doorstep or your money back for that matter).

So, there you have it, the answers as to why Naru was cooking his own dinner in the cozy little kitchen of his apartment. Right, now back to the man himself.

_¾ cups of ground pork. _He pulled open the freezer door and peered in. Everything had a thin layer of ice covering it so he had no idea which bag held the pork. _Oh well,_ he shrugged his shoulders as he grabbed a random package that contained something that looked like it was pork before shutting the door close.

After a minute's wrestling with the stubborn slab of dark red meat (it clung desperately to the bag and refused to part with it), Naru finally managed to get it out of the clear, frost-covered plastic bag.

The meat hadn't been grounded but that hardly posed a problem to our handsome prodigy. Very swiftly, he hacked at the frozen slab with a chopping knife, an action he had seen Lin do on more than one occasion, until only small bits remained on the cutting board along with the occasional ice chip. Satisfied, he dunked it all into a large bowl nearby (actually, it was the first bowl he found in the cabinet and he had no idea that it was a salad bowl).

Very, very carefully, he measured precisely 1 teaspoon of soy sauce, 1 teaspoon of sesame oil, half a teaspoon of white sugar and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch into the bowl in that particular order. Judging by the way Naru handled the seasonings; one would be under the impression that he was handling some kind of highly corrosive substance instead.

_1 dash ground black pepper and 1 dash crushed red pepper flakes._ Unsure of what the author of the recipe meant by a dash, Naru turned little pepper pot upside down and gave it exactly one good, hard shake. He repeated it with the little jar containing the crushed red pepper flakes and every last flake ended up in the bowl.

_I don't remember seeing so many red pepper flakes when Lin made this dish. _Nevertheless, he pushed the thought aside in favor of mixing everything in the bowl with a wooden spoon. Satisfied, he let it marinate for exactly 10 minutes as per the directions in the cookbook.

_5 … 4 … 3 … 2 … 1_

With the ten minutes up, Naru glanced at the next instruction printed in the book. Ever so gently, he placed the wobbling piece of tofu (drained, of course, as the book said) onto a stainless steel dish. The cookbook expressly said 'a microwave-safe dish', hence his choice of a round, stainless steel dish. If that plate, made from an alloy of iron, carbon and chromium, could withstand very high temperatures, then surely it is safe to be used in a small microwave right?

_Top with green onion, carrots, and chili pepper. _Immediately, he set to chopping up the exact amount of green onion, carrots and chili pepper that he needed into microscopic fragments before putting them on the smooth surface of the tofu, once more in that order.

Having he completed that short task, he covered the whole thing with some plastic wrap (having already made a small slit in it to let steam out, according to the book of course) prior to placing it into the microwave. It was a good thing he wasn't as short as Mai because then he wouldn't have been able to get at the box of plastic wrap that Lin kept in the topmost cabinet without climbing on a chair.

He had just pressed the button that said 'Start' on the microwave after setting it at HIGH for 5 minutes when he heard the sound of the front door being unlocked. _That must be Lin and Mai. _

Beginning today, his part-time assistant would be living with them for two weeks as the authorities fix the gas leak that had sprung up in her apartment building. Lin had very graciously offered her the use of the guest room in their 3-bedroom apartment for the entire duration seeing as how she could hardly afford to stay in a respectable hotel for that long a period.

Noting that the cookbook said nothing whatsoever about his having to watch the tofu cook, Naru stepped out into the living room just as the door was pushed open to reveal a grinning Mai holding a dripping umbrella, and the ever stoic-looking Lin, bearing one suitcase in each hand.

Upon seeing him, the girl flashed him a brilliant smile while saying, "Naru! You didn't blow –"

A loud boom cut her sentence short. The three of them looked at one another until Lin dropped both suitcases in his hands and dashed to where the sound originated from, followed closely by Naru and Mai.

"Oh my …" said Mai softly.

Little white tendrils of smoke could be seen curling up from the back of the microwave. More came out when Lin pulled the door open. When he did so, Mai more than managed to get a good look at what the inside of a microwave that had just went boom looked like. Bits and pieces, mostly red in color, of what she assumed was food stuck to the sides with hardly anything remaining where it's supposed to be, which is in the plate.

"What … is this, Naru?" asked Lin sternly as he removed the stainless steel plate and dumped it into the sink with a loud clatter.

"My dinner," was the calm reply.

The Chinese man couldn't help but sigh. "Didn't you know that you're not supposed to put metal objects into the microwave?"

Naru, bless him, blinked. Twice. Now this was news to him.

The onmyouji didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Naru, for all his intelligence, knew next to nothing about cooking with a microwave or cooking with anything at all, for that matter. Shaking his head, Lin said, "Next time, read the manual before you attempt to use it, Naru."

Interestingly enough, Naru didn't give Lin any form of reply as he tried to look as if he hadn't just been guilty of an attempt at blowing up the innocent piece of kitchen appliance. Sadly, he was failing rather miserably.

Mai could hardly contain the giggles that were threatening to burst forth any longer and a soft giggle made its way past her lips. The amount and intensity of the glares that her boss was sending her way did nothing to stop her from giggling. Who knew that a sullen Naru could look so cute?

oOo

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A/N: This was written because I was bored, not to mention feeling a bit wacky if you haven't discovered that by now. Also, I felt bad about having neglected this fandom for so long in favour of writing for another fandom, namely Inuyasha (I blame Sesshoumaru, it's all his fault). Review and let me know what you think, please. Oh, and the recipe was definitely not my own but one named 'Chinese Microwaved Tofu with Minced Pork' which I obtained from http // allrecipes . com (just remove the spaces if you really want to visit it). 


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